


burn your life down

by Magdaleria



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: #luke skywalkers double standards, Character Study, F/M, Spoilers, canon character death, character introspection, please get kylo ren therapy, tros spoilers galore, unhealthy but interesting relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magdaleria/pseuds/Magdaleria
Summary: From the ashes of Ben Solo's life, so long ago, Kylo Ren had been birthed - a monster from his inception.But even monsters can ache.Even monsters can yearn.----A character study/introspection of Kylo Ren through the sequel series.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	burn your life down

_“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”_

-Mary Shelley

* * *

Redemption is a bitter pill to swallow.

But with effort, it goes down. It dissolves, it burns, and eventually—

It mends.

* * *

He can’t say his earliest memories are ones of negativity; his childhood was average, perhaps, or as average as being the son of war heroes can be. Events to be dragged along to, manners to learn, tips and tricks to be taught. A caring but forever busy mother, a distant yet fond father with a wanderlust that far out-weighed any responsibility he should have had.

An uncle. A role model.

Oh, he had looked up to Luke, once upon a time. Had seen the man, scarred, sarcastic and powerful _._ Affectionate. A teacher, a mentor, and during the dark stretches of time when Han Solo’s absences grew and grew, something of a father figure. Luke Skywalker was everything he wished his own father was – and when he told him, little Ben Solo, that he was strong with the force—

He had never felt such pride.

He – whoever he is, be it Ben Solo or Kylo Ren (both names seem so distant sometimes, so hollow – who is he really, in the end, but a vessel?) has always _felt_. Felt intensely, with every ounce of his being. Each slight brought forth rage, each delight utter glee. He loved with all the blood in his body, mourned with every tear he could shed. There were no in betweens, no middles; his emotions functioned without a gage, but rather like a switch. On or off. Hot or cold.

It took him far longer than he’d admit to realize that that wasn’t normal. That there was something _wrong_ with him. Ben Solo hadn’t been isolated as a child, but he wasn’t very social either – he spent most of his younger years amongst adults, rebels and politicians alike. Maybe he’d get shunted off to entertain visiting children every once in a while, but the actions were always stilted. It was hard to play, hard to form bonds when every pair of eyes that looked at him saw only The Son.

(Everybody always saw what they wanted to see, in the end).

He had never been ignored, but whatever problems he had had – whatever problems Ben Solo had had, when he still breathed, were easy to just… forget. Less important than trade routes, than scheduled meetings and political brunches. Easy to sweet aside, mark down as a problem for later.

Always a problem, but never one integral.

Training was supposed to fix him.

Jedi training was supposed to center you – from what Luke preached, from what he was allowed to see of the texts, Jedi were supposed to lack attachment, to be devoid of selfishness – to be truly objective. Surely such training would help poor little excitable Ben Solo, would bring him _balance--_

(But hadn’t he always been balanced? What was love without hate?)

And then the whispers had started. Maybe they had always been there, quiet and heavy in the back of his mind at the moments he needed them least – needed them most.

A missed appointment – _you’re father doesn’t love you,_ his mother patting his head, looking down at him but not _at_ him, never making eye contact – _she fears you, fears what’s inside you,_ when the emotions got the best of him and the world around him broke and tore, when Luke stood behind him, expressionless - _he thinks that you are a **monster** —_

Once, maybe, the whispers could be ignored. But the years passed, and the rage—the _rage—_ what had once been but a simmer in his gut had turned into an inferno, and what before could be passed off with a bit of shouting now caused the very world to scream alongside him. Control, the very control his uncle, his master was trying to impart on him became more and more difficult.

_Embrace it – it brings you power._

_Your family sent you away._

_You are more than the limitations they place on you._

_Let them feel your wrath._

_They fear you._

_They loathe you._

_They are not **worthy** of you._

_They don’t respectdon’tloveyouourarmsareopendon’tyouwanttobe **seen** tobe **held—**_

Ben had been having a nightmare, one evening, slumbering in his hut a stones throw away from where his uncle lie. Visions of horrible things that frightened him just as much as they invigorated him; visions of death, of blood crusted underneath his fingernails, the whir of a lightsaber, the stench of burning flesh but also—

Power. Seeing all those who looked down on him at his feet. Seeing eyes meet his, seeing him, seeing _him and not his mother, not his father or uncle_ , even if in **fear—**

Something awoke him. Maybe instinct, maybe the force, maybe simple coincidence.

And there stood the man he respected most in the world, standing over his bed, lightsaber raised, face cast in harsh shadow.

Ben Solo died that night.

But Kylo Ren had not yet been born.

* * *

That in between time was… muddled. Rough. This unnamed being, no longer a child but not yet a man, devoid of all attachments with nothing to cling to aside from that **voice** , the voice that no longer whispered but shouted, and this insurmountable anguish that could only be choked out by the rage.

The sorrow and the regret crawled up, curled behind his ribs but the anger—the anger warmed him, and as he fanned its flames, it lifted him from the ashes of what was once his life.

The whispers spoke co-ordinates.

Ben Solo. A troubled child. A Jedi Killer.

He kneels at the feet of Supreme Leader Snoke and is reborn for the first time.

Kylo Ren takes his first steps.

* * *

The years pass and Kylo blossoms. He is a killer as perhaps he had always been, but he is so much more now. The dark side is a familiar tune that dances with every wave of his hand, with every breathe he takes. It is his companion, his weapon, and his only comfort walking through the sterile halls of the First Order’s various bases.

Kylo Ren is someone to be feared, someone to be revered. His is known for his power, for his temper – he is a beast more than a man, and his is so much like his grandfather before him—

The dark side connects him to the only blood connection worth considering.

(The only father figure who couldn’t leave him.)

He becomes obsessed with his grandfather’s legacy – every success, every step, every inch he had crawled to get to where he stood. He devours every piece of information he can get, desperate to learn, desperate to become—

(Kylo Ren is a puppet. Darth Vader was so much _more--_ )

The years pass, marked only by carnage. He avoids whispers of his errant parents, chokes back the flood of emotions that burst forth with every mention of Luke Skywalker, who had gone off into a self-imposed exile after the death of all of his disciples.

(He hadn’t meant to—but maybe he had. He was Destruction. He had always been.)

When possible coordinates to the location of the last Jedi – to his _betrayer_ were revealed, Kylo Ren became obsessed, merciless in his search. He would hunt the man down and wring his revenge out of every bone in his body until the man **begged** for relief he would not receive even in death—

(To ask a single question – why? Why had he been so unredeemable? Ben Solo had been a **child** \--)

(His mother had often spoken of Luke’s willingness to sense the good in others. Surely that meant there was nothing at all within him. Kylo Ren was a void).

He never imagined he would be so distracted from the goal, however.

Kylo senses her presence before he learns of it – far before he meets her. Snoke speaking of an— _awakening_ , does little to diminish his intrigue. Force adept were always rare, but he had come across a few during his time alive – slaughtered most of them where they stood. He had been branded a Jedi Killer as a child and that title would never fade.

Seeing her with his own eyes does nothing to quell this – curiosity, he would deign to call it. He could feel her in a way that was almost frightening. It was raw. His first glimpse into her mind felt similar to falling into a chasm – a soul deep loneliness, the internal cries of a child, scared and abandoned and never quite able to grow up—

(It feels like an echo. He hates it. He hates her. He’s never felt more exposed).

_“You are afraid you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”_

(She had **seen** him).

She is nothing – a wastrel, a scavenger abandoned in the middle of no where with nothing to her name. No attachments aside from a First Order traitor and his own fucking father, and didn’t that ache? That he hadn’t been merely forgotten, but replaced?

But she was strong in the force. She could be useful.

(Kylo Ren didn’t know of loneliness. Ben Solo knew of nothing but).

And she brings with her Han Solo. The man who thus brings forth all of that buried childhood resentment, the ache and the fury and the all encompassing hurt that every errant thought of his wayward parent caused, and when the man steps into view—when he _sees_ him after so many years--

It always struck him, quietly, that is was ironic how similar the teachings of both the dark and light could be. Jedi nor Sith were supposed to have attachments. Such attachments, he had once learned, were a weakness of both himself and Darth Vader before him.

The scavenger – the _girl_ – was correct. Kylo Ren was terrified of not being as strong as Darth Vader, just as he was as scared of sharing in his weakness.

_“We miss you.”_

His hands shook and bile inched forward from the back of his throat. He felt numb. He felt **everything.**

_“Will you help me?”_

Ben Solo was long since dead. Kylo Ren cannot dare to have any hesitation, anything holding him back.

“ _Anything.”_

With a single press of a button, one final remnant fades out.

“ _Thank you.”_

The girl’s screams linger in his dreams for months to come.

* * *

The girl – Rey – leaves him scarred. It seems fitting. Their fight, their feral, frost-bitten battle in the snow sticks with him like an illness, one that can’t be healed. It lingers in his mind, in his actions, and he finds himself – obsessed.

She loathes him, he can feel it – can **feel** it, physically, but something about it is—comforting. He is used to hatred, and her own is so close to nostalgic that it is almost bittersweet. Rey is lost, and Kylo has found her. And something about her fascinates him in a way so little in his life ever has.

The first time the force connects him he is still, however, alarmed. Had her training progressed so far? Was she so much stronger than him? Was he **weak-?** But no – she couldn’t. This… connection was something decidedly other.

It was more an impression than a physical sensation, as if she were a ghost haunting the very air he was breathing. But he could See her, feel her anger, her anxiety and confusion. Her exhaustion was so palpable (so very familiar), that he was convinced for a brief moment that he could reach out and grasp it.

She was always so hostile – how odd was it, that this was the one situation in which he didn’t feel the need to return it? Kylo Ren was a monster, so far removed from any concept of gentleness that it was almost laughable.

(Ben Solo had been soft, once. In another lifetime).

It happens again.

She’s with Skywalker, because of course she is, and he can’t help but ask – did she know of what her supposed Jedi Hero had done?

They meet once more.

She mourns for Han Solo – he had known she would. How pitiful, how _familiar_ a sight she made, so desperate for a father figure, for someone to take control and tell her how best to live her life. So desperate for a purpose, to matter. It feels as if he’s looking in a mirror.

But Rey is still weak – holding herself back. Holding herself to that ideal of what is good and right in a world that takes people like her – like _them_ and brands them as unsaveable, as bombs ready and primed to blow at any given moment. Snoke had shown him a better way, had taken him from the corpse of Ben Solo and given him new life.

Rey could do the same. He knew she could.

Telling her about Skywalker, about that horrid night so many years ago, both the beginning and end of everything – it’s impulsive. He can look back on it and say it was to coax her to his side but in the moment he just wanted her to **know**. Know what her hero was capable of, what he had made him into— know why he had done what he had. Why he had to make sure every remnant of Ben Solo’s pathetic existence lay dead and buried.

In return, Rey is angry. She is in disbelief. But he can feel it—can physically feel it amongst this bizarre, incredible link they share – that some of the anger… is for him.

How strange.

* * *

Over, and over again they meet – heated moments interspersed with quiet ones. She is an arrow strung too taut, on the verge of snapping. He can hear the fiber beginning to degrade. He wonders what she will become, when it finally does.

_“I’ve never felt more lonely.”_

_“You’re not alone.”_

_“Neither are you.”_

He wants to see her break.

* * *

Snoke is dead. Rey and Kylo move together like clockwork, the whirring of the lightsabers the only sound louder than that of their breathes in the air.

For a moment, a future Kylo has never deigned to consider is close enough he can nearly taste it. Them, together. No more Jedi, no more Sith. No light and dark and a million different false equivocations. No more leaders to follow and morals to uphold, no history to spend their entire lives fighting desperately to bury.

They could be free – free of every expectation. They could maybe even be happy.

She won’t take his hand.

It feels like betrayal.

(Kylo Ren doesn’t want to be alone anymore).

* * *

(Why does she always call him Ben?)

* * *

If Rey has the power to bring out him at his softest, Skywalker is the opposite. The man brings forth every ugly, terrible thing nestled deep inside of him and rips it out with a violence that leaves him bleeding and raw.

He screams himself hoarse, he fights and tears and his is **desperate** , to win, to kill, to tear him to pieces, to be the monster the man always thought he was— And he isn’t even there. There’s no blood to be spilt, nothing to be gained, to be finished.

Kylo can feel it in the force as Luke Skywalker fades from existence and somehow that, that gentle end burns far worse than anything else could have.

Skywalker – his master, his _uncle_ , deserved to suffer.

But somehow, Kylo was the only one who did.

* * *

Leading is interesting only in how little things have changed. There is a lightness in no longer having anyone to answer to, and a sense of contentment in the way his subordinates speak with more respect while studiously avoiding his eyes. They loathe him. They fear him.

They won’t do anything about it.

His weeks are spent commanding his forces, desperate to wipe out the rebellion as Snoke had failed to do before him – desperate to find **her** again, unable to rid himself of the hope that he can turn her to his side.

And then the transmission comes.

Kylo Ren was used to facing the unexpected but this – the supposed resurrection of a long dead Sith lord was never something he had factored into his plans. And, though he would never admit as much aloud, it was a frightening concept.

He never wanted to bow his head to another. The freedom that had come with leadership wasn’t one he had planned on keeping, but the… _relief_ that came with the knowledge that no judgement, no punishment was coming, that he never had to fear facing another ever again—it was heady.

He wouldn’t give it up. He refused.

* * *

Exegol is a land drenched in darkness – the very atmosphere is tainted by an aura of violence and despair, highlighted by ever-present flashes of lightning and the tortured howling of the wind.

Palpatine is little more than a ghoul, kept alive by machines and minions. His decrepit physical form does nothing to hide the power emanating from him – he is saturated with the essence of the dark side, the force lingering around him like a veil so thick that it was just shy of being visible to the naked eye.

The emperor was a legend – but he was a man. One that wanted Rey dead, and Kylo Ren kneeling at his feet.

(Rey was **his.** And he was hers).

He would never bow again.

* * *

It’s almost a relief, when they connect again – from Snoke speaking so long ago of forging the connection between them, Kylo had feared its absence with his death. But it lingered, as strong now as it had been in months past. He could still feel her on the edge of his consciousness, could tell when her frustration mounted, when she was jolting awake from a nightmare.

Sometimes, he could even feel her laughter.

Could she feel him as well?

* * *

Rey is troubled now, in a way he had never seen her be. There is a war within her, a battle raging and it is so familiar that he can map its edges with his eyes closed. It feels like a memory.

It looks like falling.

The dark calls out to her – it senses her anger, sees the height of her emotions and the way she _yearns_ – for answers, for simplicity. When he sees her, when they engage in a force battle over control of the ship—when the lightening sparks from her fingertips and illuminates the sky, causing an explosion so large it could be heard for miles—

Kylo **feels it**. Feels the contentment purring in her chest, right alongside the anguish at the loss of her companion. The duality, the inner confusion and chaos – she is so close to the precipice. She is so lost.

(He sees her. Does she realize? She doesn’t have to do this alone.)

* * *

Learning of Rey’s past – her true past, beyond the lies she had convinced herself as a child regarding her parents, makes so many things click. Both of them, the grandchildren of powerful Sith. Darkness ran in their very veins.

So why did telling her, did seeing the anguish on her face, ache?

* * *

He follows her – thinks that he can’t do anything but, connected as they are, to the ruins of the Death Star. Sees her, distraught and afraid, clutching the beacon like a lifeline and it is child’s play to take it.

Kylo crushes it, watches the remnants crumble and fall and both feels and sees something within Rey give as she watches it – some final inhibition finally freed.

When she attacks him, it is half feral. None of the finesse he knows she has gained, so little of her training showing, but she is **angry** and the rage gives her power – her strikes hit solid and true and the two of them dance along the remains of the ship, the waves a deafening symphony in the background.

She tires, unused to keeping up such high emotion, and he is close to pinning her down when he feels—it. Something familiar but distant, that he hasn’t felt since he was a child, scared and lonely and desperate.

Kylo Ren feels his mother’s presence, feels an impression of her arms wrapped around him, her voice whispering the name he has long since abandoned and he freezes. For a moment his is Ben – small, confused, and afraid.

That moment grants Rey all the opportunity she needs.

The wound is so surprising that for a moment he barely feels it – Lightsaber injuries are so strange, sterile and disfiguring in the same swing. He can smell the stench of his charred skin intermingling with the salt of the ocean waves surrounding them.

And then a second impact; a softer one, but no less painful for it. When something is always there, even if only quietly, subconsciously, it is difficult to pinpoint its location. The moment it disappears though – its loss is keen, sharper than any stab wound could be.

Leia Organa Solo – his _mother_ —is dead. He can’t… he can’t feel her anymore.

Rey pauses as well, horror registering on her face, tears welling up and spilling over onto her cheeks, mixing with the raindrops drenching them both. She doesn’t speak for a moment – can’t, possibly. He can’t either.

She falls to her knees beside him, reaches a shaking hand out – her fingers graze the fabric of his tunic, and heals him. He can feel it as her life force enters him – there is something pure about it that he struggles to conceptualize, all her fury and anguish combined with her hope, her simple joys and determination. Her essence combines with his own until it is impossible to tell where she begins and he ends.

_“I would’ve taken Ben’s hand.”_

She leaves him.

And he – for a moment, not Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren – is completely, utterly alone.

* * *

Ben Solo was a pathetic child, angry and desperate and _hurt_ —he had… he had wanted to be loved. To be understood. To have someone listen to him when he spoke and soothe the pain he felt. But his edges had always been too sharp to be mended – too wont to cut those around him.

An uncle, a hero the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. A brave, moral man who was going to bring back the Jedi. The man who thought he was irredeemable even as a youngling, who was willing to slay him where he lay asleep.

A mother, overworked and stressed, caring but without the time or energy to do anything to show it. Sent away when he became too difficult.

A father unable to commit, who had never truly wanted a child. Abandoned in nearly every way that counted.

Kylo Ren was a monster. But Ben Solo had been one too. A smaller one, a younger one, but no less deadly. No less damaged.

So why? Why did she so desperately want him to be that child? To throw away the only sense of control he’d ever managed to take, the only power in the world that allowed him to protect himself? To punish those who hurt him so they would never dare to try again?

What was worthwhile about Ben Solo?

He could think of nothing – nothing redeemable about the name aside from the fact that it encapsulated the man Rey so desperately wanted him to be.

But he was so tired. Of fighting, of the indecision. Of being alone.

It wasn’t so cliché as to say that Rey was the light to all of his inner darkness – there were parts of her that were rugged and bitter, sharp enough to wound and ugly, but they paired with the parts of her that could love. And he could feel that, in the pieces of her that now resides inside of him, beating along side his heart.

She could – maybe already did, love Ben Solo. _Believed_ in him, as no one else ever had.

And that’s all that he had ever wanted.

* * *

Hearing his father’s voice was just another shock to his system – turning around and seeing the face of the man he thought he would never see again, the face of the man he murdered; its unnerving.

But there is something… comforting. A familiar visage, when he’s adrift – lost. It has to be an illusion, or a memory. The force, or his own psyche torturing him with his… regrets.

He has so many, he’s begun to lose track of all of them.

Han Solo’s voice is soft, his tone understanding, and that aches more than anything else could. It would be easier if the man, if this ghost could hate him. Could regret having him, trusting him, trying to redeem him – the empathy was so much more difficult to push aside.

Everything within him was a battle.

But as his father spoke this time, the ocean began to calm. The storm, ever so slightly, abated. For the first time in over a decade he could see hints of sunlight peering through the darkened clouds, casting light where before had been only darkness.

He yearned – not for the past, but… for the future.

_“I don’t know if I am strong enough.”_

The metal of his lightsaber’s handle dug into the fragile skin of his palm. His side ached. His throat felt tight.

His father smiled back at him, eyes squinted in an aged version of the grin he grew up with.

Kylo Ren cast the saber into the depths of the sea—

And Ben Solo breathed once more.

* * *

He was running out of time. He could sense Rey – knew, viscerally and without hesitation, that she was going to confront Palpatine. He wasn’t certain how she had managed to locate Exegol without his assistance, but he was past the point of underestimating her.

It seemed as though there was nothing she couldn’t do if she put her mind to it.

Infiltrating Palpatine’s lair was unpleasant, especially given his lack of weapon and the residual ache in his abdomen from his recently healed wound. But the further he went, the closer he got to her – Ben couldn’t let her face the Emperor alone – determined or not, she was a newly trained Jedi and Palpatine was a legend.

She couldn’t die. He wouldn’t let her.

Running into the Knights of Ren was something he hadn’t factored into his plan – the force only went so far in a battle against multiple opponents. For a brief moment he was convinced that this, of all things, would be where he met his end, when he felt it.

Felt her.

The force connection between them was so natural that it was akin to breathing – one minute, he’s barely avoiding a fatal wound and the next he can see her – can see the sweat beading along her forehead, the way her shoulders heave with her panicked breathing. But she sees him as well and… relaxes.

He can feel a piece of her soften.

“Ben.”

She utters the name – his name, he supposes, like a prayer, before her eyes narrow once more, serious. He reads her plan with ease – how could he not? They are one and the same. Ever connected.

She reaches her lightsaber back—

\--And he brings it forth, unable to swallow down a slight hint of smugness at the bewilderment the Knights were projecting.

No one in the galaxy was going to keep him away from Rey.

* * *

It doesn’t go well. The forcible removal of his life essence – of _their_ life essence is an invasion, unholy and painful in a way that goes deeper than any physical wound could manage. He can feel himself fading. Ben can feel Rey dying.

There is little he can do though – standing on shaking legs takes nearly all the energy he can cling on to, and with a single swipe of the Emperor’s hand his progress is extinguished and he is **falling--**

How ironic, the moment he’s decided to do more, to be more, to be what she wants, what she’s asked for, he’s going to **die** —

Will the force even take him? Will he see his masters, face their punishment and ire? What awaits a monster after death? He’d never truly though about it—

“ _Ben.”_

Rey. He hears her – not her voice, so much as her soul, crying. Desperate. A rush of power, the force whirling around that he can feel even from when he resides currently.

It doesn’t matter who he is, who he was, or who he will be. All he knows, in that moment, is one thing:

_He **will not let her die**._

The force obeys him the moment he calls for it, not managing to stop him from hitting the bottom of the chasm but softening the blow. His body cries out in protest but he refuses to give in, instead coaxing the force into lifting him, haltingly, back up the way.

Ben can hear, distantly, the sounds of a battle reaching its crescendo, can feel the pulse of energy as it dies down. It is deathly, deathly silent for a moment, and then there is a soft, muted thud.

He reaches the edge. He reaches a shaking hand to grasp at the sediment, haphazardly dragging himself up onto the cavern’s floor. The throne room which only moments ago was pristine has been utterly demolished, collapsed chunks of statues and infrastructure dotting the area.

And there, in the middle of the room, he sees her – still, collapsed on the floor.

Every step is agony. Undoubtedly, he has broken limbs, and the blood loss is beginning to make his mind grow foggy. Still, he perseveres, crawling closer until he can crumple to the floor beside her.

Rey’s eyes are open, unblinking, brown irises boring into him. Ben knows, even as he struggles to drag her into his lap, that he will find no pulse if he were to check, would find no breath in her lungs. The body he holds, caresses to his chest, is empty, devoid of her spirit and soul.

But she still exists – that alien, utter _lack_ he felt when his mother died hasn’t occurred. Rey lingers, and once more a thought reiterates itself.

He will not let her die.

How simple a choice, truly, to lay his hand against her. To take the few bits of life still left within his battered, war-torn body and feed them into her. To give back what she had given him only hours earlier, and then more. Their essences, for a moment, intermingled in the air around them. Their souls were one.

Rey’s hand twitched against her hip and Ben let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Shakily, she looks up at him, a look of wonder crossing her features – the relief that hits him is so sharp he wonders, briefly, if he has been stabbed through once more, but no.

He is seeing her features, alive and animated, and that is the best gift he has ever been given.

She lets out a soft laugh and he can’t help but return it, the relief making him giddy – has she ever made such a sound in front of him? For him?

Ben stares down at her, for a moment, their eyes meeting. It’s impossible to say who leaned forwards first, but their lips touch and it finally makes sense.

It doesn’t matter, who he is. What he’s done or where he’s come from.

Ben was made for her. He was made to give everything he was, for her.

The pull back some time later – possibly seconds, possibly hours. Rey smiles at him, softly, and the grin that crosses his lips is foreign to him but feels natural next to her.

He knows, now, that his time is over – both with her, and in the world. It doesn’t seem quite as frightening, to fade away – he will fade into her, his soul intermingling with hers. His life force will keep her safe.

He regrets the alarm that creeps into her expression as his physical form begins to dissipate, but is unable to shake off the sense of peace that has overcome him. There is no pain, now. No anger, no rage or hurt.

There is only them.

There is only peace.

**Author's Note:**

> So went and saw the Rise of Skywalker last night and. Well. WOW. My family is ungodly obsessed with star wars but I've never been more than a casual fan,,,,, But Kylo and his dynamic with Rey is something I Really Really Really enjoy so I cranked this out in a couple hours.
> 
> I only saw TROS once and their arent any clips online, so my bad if I got anything kind of wonky with remembering events from that!
> 
> Also sorry for my weird emphasizing using bold and italics, i just think its fun c:
> 
> \----
> 
> The title is after the bleachers cover of burn your life down! A good, fitting song, 10/10.


End file.
